a while, cogitating on things in her head. She looked back at him and asked, ‘What should I call you?’
He didn’t answer.
‘What do others call you?’
‘Jones.’
She shook her head. ‘My pa would make me say Mr Jones or Grandpa Jones. And that doesn’t seem right, us being closely related.’
He didn’t respond.
‘Pa said you once lived with the Sioux.’
He nodded.
‘What did they call you?’
‘Gut eater.’
‘That’s not going to work,’ she said quickly. She couldn’t imagine herself sitting at the dinner table next to Lily and saying, ‘Gut eater, please pass the gravy.’ She scratched at an itch and puzzled on the problem for a moment.
‘Maybe just Grandpa.’ She paused. ‘Is that okay?’
He nodded and Dot nodded in return, and grinned. She suddenly enjoyed the thought of calling this wild-looking old man, Grandpa. Something about him, a thing that seemed dangerous and different, made her like being around him and being blood kin. She didn’t care what Lily thought.
‘Where you from?’
‘The mountains.’
‘Which?’
‘Madres of Mexico.’
Dot squinted her eyes at him. ‘You funning me?’ She knew Mexico’s Madres mountains were a good six hundred miles south. Six hundred miles of dry waste. She marveled that the old gray pony had gone the distance carrying the huge silver-covered saddle and her grandfather.
He reached out a big hand and stroked the little dog’s back, the hand gnarled and badly busted up.
‘You came all this way just to see ma?’ Dot asked, her eyes on the old hand with its liver spots.
‘My daughter,’ he said, as if the words explained everything.
Dot thought for a while, then said, ‘How come you never came before?’
The old man didn’t answer.
They both went to listening to the long-eared owl in the cottonwood near the creek. She hunted the pasture almost every night. Lily had named her Veronica. Crickets were loud in the cool air. Dot tipped her head back and looked up at the stars that seemed close enough to touch, and wiggled her toes in the sand. She loved the ranch.
‘If you’re Indian, then I’m Indian. Right?’
‘I’m Indian – but not blood Indian.’
‘How can that be?’
He pointed at his chest.
‘That’s nothing.’
The old man didn’t reply.
Dot felt that she had won the point. And a moment later, she started in again, feeling more at ease with his brutal features. ‘Ma says you aren’t a Christian.’
He stared at the night.
‘That true?’
‘Once.’
Dot studied his face, waiting for him to explain. When he didn’t, she said, ‘I’ve never known a heathen.’
He nodded.
‘Why are you sitting out here in the dark?’
The old man took a long time to answer, as though deciding whether or not to dismiss her. Finally he said, ‘I’m talking to the spirit powers.’
‘Who’s that?’ She scrunched up her face and looked as if she thought he might be crazy.
He watched her for a few moments. ‘If you can’t learn about things, then go and leave me be.’ His voice was firm and deeply serious.
Dot put her hands on her hips and started to sass, then changed her mind, and didn’t know why. ‘What are you talking to them about?’
‘Things. My things. They are of no importance to you.’
She shifted her weight onto one bare foot and placed the other against the inside of her leg.
‘Where are they?’ Dot looked nervously around her, thinking again of the sparrows that had been disturbed at their night roost.
Jones had resumed his chanting and didn’t respond. The moon’s glow was on him fully now, and he looked like a holy man to her.
Dot squatted down and absent-mindedly reached a hand out to touch the little dog. He snapped at her and she jumped back, a drop of blood welling on a finger. She waved the stinging hand in the air and then sucked on the bite. The spell of the moment was gone. ‘I ought to shoot him,’ she said angrily. The little dog eyed her back and seemed just as angry.
Jones paid no attention to their squabbling.
Dot stared at the old man for a few moments. He had turned his back to her and was shaking the rattle again.
‘Grandpa.’ Jones didn’t turn. ‘Grandpa. Can you find things?’
He didn’t answer.
‘With your chanting – can you find things?’
‘What things?’ he asked finally, not looking at her or stopping the steady shaking of the rattle.
‘A cat?’
‘How long has he been gone?’
‘She. Two weeks.’
‘That’s a long time. Coyotes like white men’s cats. I will see whether she still lives.’
She looked relieved. ‘Thanks. Her name is Harriet.’
He began to chant and then broke into a rough coughing spell. When he finished he sat catching his breath and staring at the darkness. ‘Stay out of the hills for a while.’
‘Why?’
He didn’t say anything else. She thought he was mean looking but funny. She liked the sound of his chanting.
‘Will you teach me Indian medicine?’
He looked off across the shadows in a serious way, not angry or annoyed, just quiet and appraising, and was starting to answer, when Maggie’s voice cut him off, ‘No. He will not. He will keep his pagan ways to himself. Or he will leave this ranch.’
Jones didn’t move.
Dot turned to see her mother standing a few feet away, watching the
